He turned away and flung himself with bowed head in the chair behind his writing-table.  He wanted to collect himself, to question her, to get to the bottom of the hideous abyss over which his imagination hung.  But what was the use?  What did the facts matter?  He had only to put his memories together—­they led him straight to the truth.  Every incident of the day seemed to point a leering finger in the same direction, from Mrs. Nimick’s allusion to the imported damask curtains to Gregg’s confident appeal for rehabilitation.

“If you imagine that my wife distributes patronage—­” he heard himself repeating inanely, and the walls seemed to reverberate with the laughter which his sister and Gregg had suppressed.  He heard Ella rise from the sofa and lifted his head sharply.

“Sit still!” he commanded.  She sank back without speaking, and he hid his face again.  The past months, the past years, were dancing a witches’ dance about him.  He remembered a hundred significant things. . . . Oh, God, he cried to himself, if only she does not lie about it!Suddenly he recalled having pitied Mrs. Nimick because she could not penetrate to the essence of his happiness.  Those were the very words he had used!  He heard himself laugh aloud.  The clock struck—­it went on striking interminably.  At length he heard his wife rise again and say with sudden authority:  “John, you must speak.”

Authority—­she spoke to him with authority!  He laughed again, and through his laugh he heard the senseless rattle of the words, “If you imagine that my wife distributes patronage . . .”

He looked up haggardly and saw her standing before him.  If only she would not lie about it!  He said:  “You see what has happened.”

“I suppose some one has told you about the ‘Spy.’”

“Who told you?  Gregg?” he interposed.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“That was why you wanted—?”

“Why I wanted you to help him?  Yes.”

“Oh, God! . . .  He wouldn’t take money?”

“No, he wouldn’t take money.”

He sat silent, looking at her, noting with a morbid minuteness the exquisite finish of her dress, that finish which seemed so much a part of herself that it had never before struck him as a merely purchasable accessory.  He knew so little what a woman’s dresses cost!  For a moment he lost himself in vague calculations; finally, he said:  “What did you do it for?”

“Do what?”

“Take money from Fleetwood.”

She paused a moment and then said:  “If you will let me explain—­”

And then he saw that, all along, he had thought she would be able to disprove it!  A smothering blackness closed in on him, and he had a physical struggle for breath.  Then he forced himself to his feet and said:  “He was your lover?”

“Oh, no, no, no!” she cried with conviction.  He hardly knew whether the shadow lifted or deepened; the fact that he instantly believed her seemed only to increase his bewilderment.  Presently he found that she was still speaking, and he began to listen to her, catching a phrase now and then through the deafening clamor of his thoughts.